Student Coupons, the Slovenian Marvelous food system

Hello folks ! 

This post is going to be dedicated to the government meal subsidies for the students, maybe for some of you it's not very interesting, but for me to remember in the future and for those who are coming to Slovenia to study I believe it's quite useful information.

As I was saying, the student coupon system consist basically on a subsidy from to the government to the student to purchase a meal in selected restaurant (the vast majority I can say).

How does the system work? Well you basically have to register with a Slovenian phone number in the SOU (Student Organization) to activate the food coupons. So when you go to the restaurant you have to call 1808 in your phone and validate the coupon on the machine. et voilá, cheap meals for everyone.

You can get as many coupons as school days are. which means basically 20 to 22 coupons per month. 

If you are not much a eating out person, don't worry, the student coupons can be stored up to  3 months.

The price of the meal with the student coupon cost up to 4.5 euros, that means if you are short of money one month you can basically eat for free, or for a couple of euros. Also the a full meal normally consist of one soup, salad, main dish and dessert.

After the jump you can see some pictures of what you can eat in my favorite restaurants in town.

Bistro Sumi, 2.88 euros (Faculty of Social Sciences)

Here you have the restaurant Sumi Bistro, located between the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Administration in Bezigrad. 

You can choose two things among soup, salad and dessert. And then get the main dish. All for 2.88 euros

Appetizers and soup

One of my favorite restaurants the Mexican Joe Peñas, maybe is not the cheapest, but you eat quite well and during the evenings you get half price cocktails just for eating with student coupons. 

Full meal would be 3.88 euros and each cocktail with would be 3 euros average.

Main dish at Joe's, sea food salad.

Well this is not my favourite resturant or anything, but I went once and is not bad for 2.08 euros . You can get all the food like it is showed on the image.

You an choose the soup, mix your own salad (up to 200 gr.) and choose the main dish.

For dessert you can choose between the daily saldica or a yogurt. A bottle of mineral water is provided.

This restaurant is located next to the Maxi Market.

Carneola Pizza

And last but not least, Foculus restaurant ( I will upload more pictures in the following posts.)

It is said that this restaurant serves the best pizza in town, for me is not the best, but very very good.

With the student coupon you get a soup, a pizza or salad of your choice and an apple for dessert.

And all for 3.58

This place is amazing to have dinner specially if you are a large group of people coz is quite big.

All this restaurant accept student coupons, there are many other, that you can find on the website or simply ask other Slovenian students once you get here, it is better to discover yourself.

And obviously, they have regular menu for those who dont have student coupon.

1 abrazo a todos !

Some facts:

Price of meal with student coupon: between 0 and 4.5 euros 

For 2.68 you have a Chinese Buffet in the centre, near the Dragon Bridge

For 4.5 you have Spanish food, not comparable to Spain of course, but from time to time is fine, specially when all the jamón ibérico, queso manchego, lomo have run out already... 

There are veggie restaurant, for meat lovers, some gluten free, 

Indian restaurant, Chinese, Italian, Slovenian, Mexican, Spanish and so on. Plenty of time to try everything

And of course, for those who love fast food, you can eat in the McDonald's a full meal with salad and Sundae included for 2.08 euros, and also Kebap for less than 1 euro.

Majske Igre 2011

This is the result of a rough night...

Hello folks !

Sorry for bailing you out for almost two weeks, but I had some exams these past weeks, which I successfully passed, enjoying the amazing sunshine of Ljubljana, and of course partying a lot, but this time, not to regular clubs, but outdoor partying! And ladies and gentleman.. this is Majske Igre 2011 !

And what is this event consist of?  Apparently is a month event held every year by and for college students, sport competitions between several student dorms are held, party in these locations (see Bezigrad, Rozna Dolina, Mestni Log and so on.. ), huge parties in Tivoli Park and also some cultural events.

Cheerleaders in the football tournament break

I must say it's crazy ! If every day are parties already in the student dorms.. imagine the very same parties but with more people and louder music.. I believe that you never do parties in your home, and in this case, in your dorms surroundings.. but we don't really get to choose.. well the advantage is that if u really feel like partying you just only have to put on some street clothes and simply go outside of your own building...  If not.. you are fucked up ! At least until 1am ... that's when normally the music have to stop, at least the one from the mobile stage..

For example, two days ago there was a 'meeting' of drunk Slovenians singing acapella.. I must admit it was very nice... but not when you have to finish some paperworks...

Anyway, it is a good experience, evidently I didn't go out to all the parties organized, only to some of them.. for those people who really know me, I am not a party person, more like friends gathering and having a drink and chitchatting until the sun comes out... but from time to time one need some loud music!!

Live concert in Tivoli Park

Although this is a college event, it's free entry of course, so anyone is welcome, from tourist wondering in Ljubljana, high school students... and of course to the next generation of Erasmus students in the city. So take note, try to have everything prepared to rock the whole month!!

Nasvidenje !

1 abrazo enorme !

Rafting and day in Bled, it's all fun in Slovenia!

Bled train stop

Hello folks !


Hope u all had an amazing Easter holidays and not a rough start back with the routine, coz I know is hard, but I have some ways to minimize the holidays post-depression.
And this is .... going rafting !

Rania (a Greek girl working here fro AIESEC) thought that a nice way to farewell her before she goes back home, it was going rafting all of us, so she organized this amazing activity.

The D day was the 7th of May (Saturday), we gathered together at 9:15am in the train station, to go to Bled, where the people from the rafting company were waiting for us to take us to Sava River.
The trip itself from Ljublana to Lesce-Bled it takes just 40 minutes, but some part of the railway were under construction, so we had to take a bus from LJU to some village, and then take the train to Bled, so at the end we spent like 90 minutes.

Anyway, nearly 12 we were already in the starting point for rafting, we were like 13 people, 9 pseudo Slovenians (meaning exchange students in LJU) and 4 visitors from Austria, friends of Thanos. We had to get ready before starting the journey, including the neopren suit, helmets and life jackets. and this is the result... according to a friend of mine, we looked like Atomic Ants... I don't know if I should take it as a complement or what, but we looked funny either way  lol.

The Atomic Ants group

So, after we got ready, we jumped on the boats, and we started to pad, beautiful river, stunning landscape, it looked like a dream trip, and a very good one.
The finished our trip without any incidents... well without any big incidents... while acting like jerks in the boat, we got stuck in the middle of the river, so the monitor had to get off the boat to take us out of there, but he couldnt, so me and Thanos jumped off to help him, which was succesfull at the end, but... the flow drove the bopat down so we had to swim straight to the boat... and fuck, the water was freaking cold !! around 8 degrees or so .. imaginee... hopefully we got quickly to the boat...

Rafting in Sava River

Spicing up the journey, we also stoped for a while to climb a 5 meter high rock and made a free jump to the water, it wasn't high, but we did enjoy it tough... and again suffering from the coldness of the water.

After 2 hours ride, we finally made to the ending point, were a lady working for the rafting company was waiting for us with some blueberry schnapps to warm up the body.. delocious! Right after we just changed to our regular clothes and chill out for a bit before going to Bled.

Well what can I say about Bled that I haven't said before... beautiful as it is, but this time was slightly different, we got to enjoy the gorgeousness of the lake, it was so sunny that it made it really special, we had lunch in a pizzeria (which accepted student coupons) and take a walk around the lake.

Bled

Around 5pm some of us decided to go back to LJU, so the 4 people coming for Austria decided to drive us to the train station, so we end up being 7 people in 5 sit car... imagine the picture... well u have it here..

7 people, 1 car

The train back to LJU was direct, so we it took less time inbound trip, around 40 minutes.

After this amazing and exhausting day, we just went back home, to rest for a while, so we can go partying later that night.
I met with some Spanish to go to Nebotičnik and have a drink and later rock Orto bar.

Some 'extreme sport', tourism, relaxing, partying, as you can see, one can do everything within 24 for hours, at the expense of sacrifying some sleep of course..

1 abrazo enormee guys !


Key facts:

13 people
40 km to Bled from LJU (7 euros round trip ticket by train)
Rafting in Sava River(23 euros)
2 hours rafting
Orto Bar (rock music bar with free pool and foosball)

Spring Break Ljubljana

Gynkhana group picture! 

Hello folks !!

Here comes the next post, and this is the Spring Break held in Ljubljana, which was quite good, you will notice why.. 

Well first I have to say that the Spring Break is quite unsual compared to other European countries, mainly because here the week off is much later than in Spain for example, more or less the lenght is the same, but moved one week later. Here it started on the 23rd of April until the 2nd of May, which hava the following holidays, Easter Monday (25th), Independence Day(27th) and Labour Day (1st and 2nd of May)

Many Erasmus decided to go out for the week off, but for me I decided to stay in Ljubljana, actually I wanted to go to Pula (Croatia), but we saw the weatherforecast and I wasn't going to be good... 

Anyway, as I was saying, I stayed here for the whole week, so what did I do? well, basically sleep, party and to some extend.. study..

Lots of Erasmus didnt go anywhere either, so we mostly went out for coffee to the centre, lunch dinner, party in KMS, Metelkova, Ultima, you know, the few places open almost everyday.. 

But what did make special this week, was definately the celebration of Labour Day, the City Hall organized a bonfire and prepared a live concert in Rožnik , woww, I liked it so much ! despite of the walking up the hill to 'the pink church' which was btw quite exhausting and dangerous, there were no street lights, (is in the middel of the forest, so is quite understandable), an amazing experience afterall. 

The bann who was playing over there, Tabu, was very good, so sad I couldn't understand any of the lyrics, but we lived the moment like we really did.. and I also got the chance to catch a drumstick from the band !! what a present really !! 

Rožnik

the bonfiere

Tabu

Very nice group indeed! 

About other things I did this past week, we also made a picnic rigth outside of Rozna, as long as the sucky weather allowed us..

Picnic with tortilla de patas, ensalada campera and assorted snacks

during this week we also (well, the twins, Clara and Rocio) organized in their home a Gynkhana, with different tests, like looking for candies in a bowl full of flour, looking for the nutella buscuit blindfolded, and stuff like that. It may sound a little bit childish, but I had so much fun, I must admit

The Nutoka test

Well, this is pretty much my weekend off from college duties, lots of activities, parties and so much fun! 

I also met many  people this past week, which I wish I had met earlier, but well, you know what they say, 'better late, than never' .

1 abrazo enorme a todos !

Some facts:

11 days off
7 months living in Ljubljana
2 months to go
Amazing people
Tons of experienve lived and many to live
What else?